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Soak Test Coming for Verizon’s Moto X, Should be Android 4.4.2

Invites to a soak test for Verizon’s version of the Moto X went out moments ago, asking that participants check out an “early preview of a new software release.” With Verizon’s variant one of the last remaining without Android 4.4.2, I think it’s safe to assume what is in store. The update is considered pretty minor, but does bring the phone up to the most current version of Android.

We have already seen the update arrive on the T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular models. Before you get too negative about the timing of this one, keep in mind that Verizon’s was first to get 4.4, which was the bigger update of the two.

The changelog for the T-Mobile version looks like this:

Depending on when the soak test starts, users outside of Motorola’s Feedback Network could see the update with a week or two, assuming no problems arise while testing.

Cheers J, E, S, A, N, A, A, C, Z, G, J, B and A!

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I don’t have problem unless short battery life, so I’m gonna get a kind of wireless charger to keep my phone connected

buildakicker

Love the MotoX. It has been so wonderful to go from the gnex to this device in terms of battery on 4g alone! I get a full day out of the device and I use it quite a bit. Add Tasker and some NFC tags here and there and alakazama! Killer. VZW.

chris_johns

will this break my root(yes)….will someone find a root for this for us poor verizon motomaker x guys relying on root and gravity box to have a custom rom like experience

Anthony Johnson

They have given the specification improved battery life. I
too currently have Android 4.4.2 in my Samsung Galaxy S4 but the battery sucks!
So I recently purchased wireless charger through which I can simultaneously
charge my Samsung Galaxy S4 and Lumia 920. Well come to the point they said improved
battery life which I can’t believe as everyone is pretty much aware that there
are so many apps running in the background which consumes power. So forget
about improved battery life.

Cesar

That changelog leaves out the fix to ART, which is the part I’m most excited about. Here’s to hoping this update goes live soon!

Richard Giordano

So I’m guessing the 2013 Droids r next for the update right?

Tom Z

Will this break root? I’m thinking about rooting my Moto X, but haven’t yet gotten around to it.

NexusMan

For the test, they ask you to remove root.

Tom Z

I guess my question is: Should I root before I take this update when it’s released?

NexusMan

They suggest that you do. They are very clear that they know people root and they don’t frown upon it, but they’ve found that it’s best to remove root before doing it as many problems often occur with rooted users.

Jared Denman

Anybody pulled the update so we can flash?

Tyler

Wondering the same thing, i just filled out the survey to get in 2hrs ago but haven’t received email with instructions yet.

Jared Denman

What’s the link for the survey?

Tyler

You have to be part of the Motorola Feedback Network in order for it to work. Posting the link will do nothing.

NexusMan

Never understand why people want to flash unstable early test releases, instead of just waiting a few weeks until an official, functional, final build is available.

Tyler

It’s not unstable, its most likely what T-mobile has already started rolling out. Its a soak test to make sure everything goes smoothly when pushing it out to the masses.

NexusMan

We won’t know how stable or unstable it is until we test it. That’s why it’s a “test,” that we will provide “feedback,” on. T Mobile and Verizon’s network are completely different entities, so there’s no way it’s the exact same update that T Mobile has started rolling out. It is also likely that the Verizon update will turn on the AWS bands in the Moto X.

Kenne Phimmasonsouk

Come on at&t!

Al-Burrit0

Yeah i got the 4.4 battery drain bug. my phone does not make it through the day no more.

TC Infantino

This is good. I am hopeful that the Droid Maxx will follow very soon since it is almost the exact same phone. VZW is impressing me with this update speed.

cjlee89

So did everyone miss the “keep this private” agreement?

Scott

Geez, I hope nobody post the official change log again.

NexusMan

I agree. While I think it is news, to report that the invites have gone out, or that a soak has begun, I never really liked any further reporting on it, or posting changelogs, and such.

cjlee89

Really, downvotes? There is a specific page in the survey that basically says do not disclose the details, etc. The last time someone leaked this information the soak was almost cancelled.

EliteX

ABOUT TIME!!!!

blackshowman

Just in time for the big sale on Monday.

mrjayviper

why do they call it a soak test? just a fancy name instead of using beta testing? thanks

Mark2134

A more appropriate name would be “invited mass saturation feedback test” however I think since they “soak” a certain amount of participants it just stuck. I don’t think Moto actually uses the term “soak”.

Has anyone else had a problem with the front facing camera? My GFs VZW Moto X has a problem where some round paper gasket, under the screen, slips down and in the way of the camera. We had the first phone replaced and this second phone did the same thing.

NorCalGuy

American build quality

Michael Malone

Come on, really? Design Engineers choose the materials and the workers assembling the phone can’t help that….. If the adhesive supplier provided inferior raw materials, we should blame the assembly line right? The build quality of mine is flawless.

NorCalGuy

That’s like saying its not Xbox’s fault when all the 360’s had red rings when Microsoft knew the glue holding key components would fail and then the Xbox would as well, that’s why every Xbox 360 owner had a 2 year warranty on that specific problem. Hopefully moto will continue to fix the problem sans charging much like Microsoft with the 360

Michael Malone

Actually it’s not like saying that at all…. It’s saying don’t blame the workers for something they had no control over. Motorola is certainly responsible for the design of their product or the warmth of raw materials they provide to the assembly line. Neither if which has s thing to do with their choice to use American workers to build it….. How was the ASSEMBLY quality? That is a measure of their performance…. Nice catchy criticism of American workers though without understanding the process though.

Michael Malone

“Quality” of raw materials.

NorCalGuy

I never said anything about the workers lol I am talking about the overall quality of the product which included the building of said products which would lead to the people who sourced the products who would know what the results would be. Also what kind of company doesn’t pull products from its line for strenuous testing? Some people here have had their phone replaced multiple times already.

trd105

Yep I have that same problem. I haven’t had to send mine back yet but there is a whole thread on it in the reddit forums.

brkshr

Thanks for the confirmation. I haven’t read about it anywhere yet. I’ll have to search for that.

Jason B

Yeah, it’s the heat from being in your pocket. It softens the adhesive, and it moves around. I’ve already removed my back and fixed it once. It’s really easy. You just need a pry tool, a T3 torx screwdriver, and some gentle handling. I should add that after fixing it and having it centered, it’s moving down from the top on me again.

I might just remove the damn “gasket.”

brkshr

If it was my Nexus I would open her up. For my GF, I think I’ll try one more replacement before I open her phone up. Good to know that can be fixed yourself though. Thanks

Pedro

Wow.
If that’s what it really is, then Motorola needs to invest in some temperature/vibration chambers. Run it at 180F and 5G in both vertical and horizontal axes. Wait a month. See what happens with internal parts. Keep another batch in for another month. Check it. Repeat.
Hard to believe that a company missed operation temp and gravity/vibration effects in a consumer device. But maybe they did.

Lashonator

Or…. You could call customer service through your carrier, who will transfer you to motocare, who will send you a code to make a brand new moto x in walnut…. Just a snap shot of my experience with the front facing camera issue.

Jason B

I’ve already gone through a replacement for a crooked AMOLED screen. Lol.

John Sanatar

Did you have a moto maker phone? Or a standard black or white? Which carrier? I have been tossed back and forth by Verizon and Motorola about this problem. All I want is a motomaker code, not a refurb.

Diablo81588

Haven’t had this happen on mine and I bought it on release day. Maybe they had a defective batch or something?

brkshr

Maybe. I got my GF her phone in mid November. We got the replacement at the end of December. I’m hoping they will have the issue resolved by now.

Jason B

The adhesive might’ve been a little weak on some. Mine was moving around like hot electric tape – gooey adhesive and movable when I fixed it myself.

I just removed the damn adhesive piece. Looks okay without it.

Tyler

So I’m not the only one with this issue. Looks like i should get it replaced.

brkshr

You should. If you got it through MotoMaker, call them. If it’s a black or white one through VZW (or whichever carrier) go through the carrier for the fastest turn around.

Tyler

Yeah I plan to, just not convenient to send it away. I have a motomaker version did you have to pay for shipping or anything of the sorts?

brkshr

If you want them to send it to you right away (2 days I think), you have to pay for the phone full price. When they receive your defective phone, they will refund you in about 10 days. If you go this route, I would recommend waiting for your credit card cycle to start over so you won’t have to pay for it on your next statement.

If you don’t want to pay for the phone first. You can send your phone in and they will send you a new one when they receive it. I don’t know if they wait 10 days or if they send it right away because we opted for the first route.

Edit: other than that, no additional charges.

C-Law

My friend, my girlfriend, and I all have this phone. Me since October and them since January. None of us have had an issue like this . that sucks!

moew

@brkshr yes, friend at work had the issue, bought on republic, and we could clearly see the issue with the front camera.

He got a replacement direct from them. I would expect nothing else from any other outlet, as it was obvious it was interfering with the pics.

michael arazan

A lot of complaints in forums on others Moto X with front facing camera over at Android central.

charliehill

How about the battery life ? does it work on wireless car charger ? ,battery life is always a problem for me so I have to charge while driving.

brkshr

It’s my GF’s Moto X. It lasts her all day and she rarely ever uses a car charger. She’s not exactly a power user by any means. She pretty much just looks at FB and news.

charliehill

I’m power killer, always take care of work email on phone,so I got 3 wireless charger, 1 in the car, 1 at the office and 1 at home.

brkshr

That’s crazy. What phone do you have now? The Moto X doesn’t have wireless charging capabilities. I didn’t see the “wireless” part of your comment before. If you want battery life, the LG G2 is supposed to be the best right now. That or the Note 3, but that’s a giant phone. The LG G3 is supposed to be coming out soon. So it might be even better.

I learned at a young age that if I didn’t like something, I didn’t have to read it. Some learn at an older age I guess.

botox the motox

I didn’t read it, I just came straight to the comments to share my opinion. You’re not as smart as you think I guess.

Adrynalyne

You are right. I thought you were smarter than coming straight to the comments to troll.

My bad. I guess I am not that smart.

botox the motox

Obviously, I wasn’t trolling until you had to pipe up. I’d say you’re the troll. I was simply stating my opinion about moto x articles on a site I like to frequent for entertainment and info. Troll on genius.

The Narrator

So, skipping to the comments to complain about a device you don’t own, keep in mind, this whole time you didn’t even have to click the article, you’re going to call him a troll?

That’s hilarious.

Adrynalyne

LOL.

botox the motox

Who knew two moto x dick riders could be so comedic while stroking each others epenis. Don’t choke on the cumspit while laughing it up.

You’ve shared your thoughts about a phone you don’t own. The people here that do own the phone enjoy these articles. Now you can do the same on every other blog site on the web because they all report on the phone you hate so much.

boric the motox

I never said I hated it. Obviously it has an apple ish cult following, and some people love it. I just think it gets way too much attention. How about an article about cm unifying device trees for hlte? Oh you will once they unify the moto x… Ok gotcha.

Mark2134

Submit a tip so it can be written up. There is a lot of information out there and a lot of these articles are written up once that information is brought to the attention of the writers.

Raven65

Or maybe… just maybe… it’s a GREAT phone and worthy of all the attention. If you don’t want to read the Moto X articles, nobody’s holding a gun to your head. A lot of people (myself included) bought one and appreciate the coverage.

Matthew Rebmann

Yep. And I enjoy reading them. There’s clearly interest in Articles of this nature when there ARE people out there who enjoy the phone and own one. I’m one of them. This is also not an opinion piece, it’s an informational one. Vote with your mouse: don’t click if you don’t want them to get page views.

NexusMan

Cool! Yet another f&*$king complaint in the comments section by an over hyped hater of the fantastic moto x.

MichaelFranz

i hope when they push this for the droid line they finally get rid of the ICS blue int he status bar. That is the only thing i can not stand. it might be kit kat but it doesn’t “feel” like kit kat. I know many soak test users reported that as an issue they had with the release. not an actual bug issue but just knowing it should of been white and that Moto X was they figured Droid would too.

pizzaparties

Isn’t there a minor camera update too? I just got my moto x a few weeks ago and I really miss the camera on the S3. The camera is the only thing I’m really unhappy about on this phone.

The Narrator

There was an update a while ago that fixed it up a bit.

T4rd

I thought Moto released a seperate app for camera updates so they can fix camera issues without needing to push a whole OS update?

pizzaparties

Oh yeah it appears so! Thanks for the heads up.

C-Law

Got my email! Currently restoring my twrp backup and then will flash stock recovery. I’ve been running the xt1052 build of 4.4.2 but official is always a good thing to have!

Mark2134

Seriously?

mcdonsco

Given my experience with Roms is light, but every ROM I tried (aokp, gummy, and cyanogen) were all buggy even as their “stable” builds … Stock w/ root is always better IMHO.

C-Law

I wasn’t running a rom like that, I was running a stock 4.4.2 moto x build from another country.

mrjayviper

another country? I thought moto x was only released in the US and canada?

I just modified the build.prop towards the bottom to match my verizon build.prop and then on every boot, would have to enter the radio settings to change it from lte/gsm to lte/cdma auto prl. That way it would connect to everything correctly

C-Law

No not seriously? I dunno what happened. Went to install the update and the phone rebooted and that was it. I tried to explain in my comment above in an edit that maybe it was a goof because my phone is also listed as a sprint phone on moto’s website

Mark2134

I thought it was odd. Verizon would’ve gotten mad points from me for that fast of a soak push lol

Blue Sun

Your update probably disappeared because you violated the NDA. /s

Jason B

Just remember that the 4.4.2 OTA updates the bootloader. Do NOT reflash the old bootloader image after updating.

C-Law

yup I know

grumpyfuzz

A noob question, but the boot.img in the factory image should not be flashed when going back to stock? Just trying to confirm this.

Jason B

The bootloader file is motoboot.img. 4.4.2’s version is 30.B4 on North American models. Even though the version number is close to 4.4’s 30.B2, it bricks the device when downgrading.

Bryan Burch

Got my invite as well. Non-dev xt1060. Went through the survey and all…

Scott Kart

Can anyone verify if they fixed issues introduced in 4.4 such as the delayed active notifications…black screen when initially starting up chrome?…I think there were a few others as well

Chris VanAnden

I’ve never experience the black screen for chrome…I do get delayed notifications sometimes though. It would be nice to see that fixed.

Mark2134

Black screen on chrome is a chrome issue. If you use chrome beta it doesn’t happen.

mcdonsco

When I had my max and it got KitKat it was a huge let down…blue instead of white, chrome black screen, battery life was horrible and signal wasn’t great either and last, camera was worse.

Diablo81588

Chrome for mobile is garbage, and I’ve never experienced delayed active notifications. Only thing I can’t stand is the new dialer app that came with 4.4. Totally unintuitive and they stripped out the useful features that came with the Nexus 5.

storm33x

where is the Note 3’s kitkat update Verizon??

JBartcaps

Hmm great idea to ask in the Moto X post

The Narrator

4.4 and Verizon and everybody has to ask about every device. Mind blowing

brkshr

Wait for the rest of the carriers to get their updates, then ask VZW.

T4rd

Verizon reads Droid Life? =p

Pedro

It’s coming soon.

Curtis

Heeere we goooo!

AbbyZFresh

Verizon is back to their old ways again. So much for being first for KitKat. Every carrier Moto X is on 4.4.2 now.

Hothfox

Right, but 4.4.2 isn’t as big of an update as 4.4 was, and Verizon was first there. That’s the point.

TSK

ATT does not.

JBartcaps

Na man, back in the day it would be like 4 months after other carriers got it

Kevin Verdesca

wrong. T-mobile is the only official one out of the 4 main carriers. sprint and verizon are having soak tests now

http://www.vinsonimages.com yamaha83

ill take early updates on big releases and late on these minor releases anyday!

morteum

Me too, but I could see this length of delay becoming a trend with all future updates. Better late than never, but getting 4.4 so quickly was amazing.

Mark2134

Wait…what?? They were the first to 4.4 and 3 months later are already updating to the latest Android version. “Old ways” would imply us having this conversation 6-12 months after….if at all.

trixnkix637

There’s so much wrong with your statement…

Chris VanAnden

This is blazing fast compared to the Thunderbolt updates and the Galaxy Nexus updates. Choose your battles.

trlovejoy

Still last.

Ian Case

Last? I don’t see AT&T on that list.

trlovejoy

Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just a bitter ex galaxy nexus user

Scott

Seriously? I’ve got no problems with the time frame here. Verizon Moto X owners are just a few weeks behind the other carriers. You know who has a right to complain? Verizon Galaxy Nexus owners who are still waiting on 4.3. For all of my annoyances with Verizon, their treatment of the Moto X is not one of them.

AbbyZFresh

If you’re still on a Galaxy Nexus in 2014 you lost. Either go to T-Mobile/AT&T and get a Nexus 5 or stay on Verizon and get a Moto X. Simple.

Scott

Been on the Moto X since last October and it is the best phone I’ve ever had. Nonetheless, my Galaxy Nexus still has a good amount of life left in it. Had it actually been able to keep a signal, I would still be using my GNex. Now I just stream music through it to an external speaker. Was going to leave Verizon, but need their coverage.

Jason B

Eh, no. Yes, Motorola has had builds ready, but they’ve actually been doing more debug this time around. 4.4 caused a lot of issues due to the bugs present in the OS itself (choppy Bluetooth, Exchange email issues, battery drains, HD video/audio sync issues, etc.), and Motorola already got credit for being first to KitKat after the Nexus 5. It came with some pains though since 4.4.2 was released very quickly afterward by Google for the Nexus devices, but Motorola had to do more development work on their own features and camera software. The MSM8960Pro is software optimized as well, so there may be improvements there too.

AbbyZFresh

So you’re saying the camera problem is finally solved on 4.4.2?

I hope so.

Diablo81588

The camera isn’t the best, but it’s far from unusable. I’ve taken some pretty sharp pictures with it actually, and low light performance is much better than most other phones.

Radgatt

And Verizon isn’t even last to get this update. AT&T hasn’t received this update either.

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